Michio Kaku, in his book "The Future of Humanity," states that if the human race can survive another 200 years (from 2015, so another 193 years now), — Zolenskify

So we just have to make sure we survive the coming 193 years? Doesn't this sound...hmmm... funny maybe?

I hear you, but to a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish. I fair that my generation has seen enough pain to understand how valuable our time here truly is, and that we will position future generations to live well.

Well, I am a human.

Your future is your children's past. The same goes for your children and their children and so on. :smile:

Someone on the forum, can't recall who, said: We can't even see the present because light has a finite speed. The best we can hope for is see the past as it happened just nanoseconds ago.

The mind, however, with its logical apparatus (deduction, induction, mathematics, ESP deserves a mention) can (actually) see the future.

Does this mean the mind can travel faster than light? Is the mind nonphysical?

I honestly don't see most us reaching the 22nd century.
— Manuel
Dark minds think alike ...

In a century, civilizational collapse on a global scale – population crash to below 2 billion – due mostly to catastrophic climate instability and consisting mostly of failed states and "floating" transnational corporate enclaves.
— 180 Proof

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/368715 (re: surplus people)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/560633 (re: population crash) — 180 Proof

Maybe (above) I'm on to something ... An excerpt below from a recent book about elites prepping to escape the imminent catastrophes which in large part are caused by their accelerating concentrations of wealth which exacerbates global social inequality and its varies, "spontaneous", reactionary populist movements (i.e. geopolitical instability):

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff

edit:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/751923 (re: sketch of my own, non-elite "rosy" forecast of our species-prospects)

Yes, if it does, then it will be carried-out via fleets of self-replicating Bracewell probes. — 180 Proof

My crystal ball agrees. Interstellar space travel and terraforming are going to be too difficult, too resource-intensive, even assuming vastly superior far-future technology. I expect we will (sooner or later) put astronauts on Mars, and probably develop a variety of space stations and research stations throughout the solar system, but we will not terraform Mars or Venus, we will not have permanent human settlements on either, and we will not be sending potential colonists to any other star systems. If interstellar exploration happens- and I believe it eventually will- it will be via remote probes and starsails and so forth. Which is still plenty exciting, imo. It just means the future won't look like most sci-fi movies you've ever seen.

I also believe, and this may be a bit of a hot take, that we will find compelling/persuasive evidence of the existence of extra-terrestrial life within the next several decades, probably from spectrographic analysis from Webb, or other future space telescopes.

I'm just hoping we can get to fusion soon enough. Cheap electricity is the best predictor for economic growth.

Given the abundant distribution of organic compounds observed in this galaxy alone, I'm confident bio-signatures in the atmospheres of exo-planets will be detected within decades by space-based telescopes, etc Detecting extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), on the other hand, I suspect is far less likely, if ever, to happen for reasons pointed out in the post excerpted below:

ETIs probably went "dark and silent" many many millennia ago just like Earth is now gradually transitioning from broadcast radio to fiber optic transmission barely a century after Bell, Edison & Marconi. (Assuming they started with EM broadcasting and then improved their IT like we are doing now.) — 180 Proof

Just my 2 bit(coin)s. :nerd:

The recent "news" about "a fusion breakthrough" is mostly hype spun for the benefit of continued government funding and private investing. Ignition was achieved briefly whereby the fusion reaction produced net energy (Q_plasma) but that's orders of magnitude less than the electricity that the entire fusion generator had used. Total output of electricity (Q_total) must exceed total input of electricity for fusion generation to be a viable, cost-effective energy source. We're not there yet, nor even close, given the latest "breakthrough" news; I think we'll get there in a decade or two, but even then fusion won't be a magic bullet, just one component in.an array of renewable energy (+ advanced materials) technologies needed to ween global civilization off of oil, gas & coal.

Given the abundant distribution of organic compounds observed in this galaxy alone, I'm confident bio-signatures in the atmospheres of exo-planets will be detected within decades by space-based telescopes, etc Detecting extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), on the other hand, I suspect is far less likely, if ever, to happen for reasons pointed out in the post excerpted below — 180 Proof

Yeah I agree. And not only organic compounds, but also the discovery of liquid water on many objects in our own solar system (Europa, Enceladus, etc). Not to mention our study of extreme-o-philes here on Earth. Its entirely possible that life is ubiquitous throughout the universe... just not intelligent/technological civilizations, which I agree are probably extremely rare and very well may never be conclusively shown to exist.

ETIs probably went "dark and silent" many many millennia ago just like Earth is now gradually transitioning from broadcast radio to fiber optic transmission barely a century after Bell, Edison & Marconi. (Assuming they started with EM broadcasting and then improved their IT like we are doing now.) — 180 Proof

Exactly. We're talking about VERY narrow windows in both time and space for communication to be possible, and even if intelligent technological civilizations are somewhat common, its still entirely possible that either they or we have gone extinct before that window opens. In terms of cosmic time-scales, humans have only been around for a minute (and we've been producing detectable bio/technological signatures for only a miniscule fraction of that). I suspect that the solution to Fermi's Paradox is rather depressing and mundane (but still interesting for all that).

:up: